Brainquake (2 page)

“I asked you—”

“Yes. Sit here. On my day off.”

Why did I tell him? Why is he staring at me?

Paul felt fear. The cop was old but big.

The cop pointed at the carriage. “Seen that carriage before?”

Paul shook his head.

“What company you hack for?”

“Indie.”

The cop opened Paul’s wallet, studied his driver’s license, read the words aloud: “Paul Page. One Rose Road. Where is Rose Road?”

“Battery.”

“Still reside there?”

Paul nodded.

“Rose Road…Rose Road…” He rumbled through years of street names in his head. “Old graveyard there?”

Paul nodded.

“Busted-down shacks near a busted-down warehouse?”

Paul nodded.

“You live in one of those shacks?”

Paul nodded.

The cop slapped the wallet shut, pushed it into Paul’s chest. “Stay put on that bench. Homicide’ll want to talk to you.” He left to question the people his young partner had detained. Paul sat down slowly, his eyes on Ivory Face, still lying on the ground looking bloodied and lifeless just like the dead man who lay only steps away. Why weren’t they doing anything about her? About the baby? How could a baby shoot that man?

Angry voices invaded his thoughts. The balloon peddler was screaming at the cops:

“I saw the baby shoot that gun!”

“Listen to him,” a man called out. “He’s a witness.”

“You cops are a joke!” a woman shouted.

The old bull controlled himself. “Ma’am, there’s no gun in the carriage.”

“Look again!” a man shouted.

Heckling didn’t bother him. But one of those bastards could report him for not following up on a citizen’s eyewitness bullshit. Four months to retirement, he had to tiptoe. Angrily, ashamed of himself, he returned to the carriage, trailed by the young cop.

He knew the people were watching him closely so he made a big deal of the way he looked in the carriage, saw nothing, just blood on the torn blue blanket and under it the baby, wailing. He whirled on the peddler, seizing chest bones, lifting the sparrow off his feet.

“You spread word that baby fired the gun, you castrated sonofabitch, I’ll book you in the shithouse.”

Then, thinking a moment, he put the man down, turned back. The baby’s shrill crying tore the cop’s ears but oddly enough it wasn’t the sound that bothered him. He looked in the carriage for the third time because he remembered that rip in the blue blanket. It was hard to see in the blood. But he remembered it, now studied it, kept leaning over, bending lower. He lifted the blood-splotched blanket. Why the hell hadn’t he done this before?

Between the baby’s blue booties was a tiny hole in the white comforter. Slowly lifting it, he met the muzzle looking up at him.

His partner was by his side. “I’ll be a sonofabitch, you’ll retire a sergeant!” The young cop reached down for the baby, and was jerked back hard and fast.

“The nut that rigged it could’ve planted a booby trap under the baby,” the old cop said.

“Bullshit!”

“I seen ’em in the war in toilets, water faucets, under dishes an’ corpses.”

“Bullshit!”

“Okay, go on, then, pick up the baby.”

The young cop’s hands reached down, touched the crying baby and froze.

Word was spreading there was not just a gun but a bomb under the baby’s ass. Barricades had been rushed in, hastily erected, barely keeping the crowd back. The Pickpocket Squad was busy. It was a field day for cannons lifting wallets, flipping open shoulder-straps in the press of bodies. One enterprising bookman, a U.S. Army veteran who usually sold off a folding card table by the entrance to the park, had a box of pocket Bibles, going quick at $10 a copy to help pray for the baby. A guitar player with stringy hair and a rainbow strap ad-libbed a song about
the baby who pulled the trigger, shot us all
. Singing slow, strumming, now on the twenty-third verse, inspiration failing him, upturned baseball cap by his feet showing only a handful of coins, as much copper as silver. Television and newspaper cameras swiveled at each hint of movement, hung down again disappointed when no explosion came.

One news photographer, on deadline and out of patience, ran toward the baby in the carriage. A mounted policeman galloped after him. The crowd roared. Leaping down from the horse, the policeman got the photographer in a half-nelson, took his Nikon away from him.

The balloon peddler worked small groups in the crowd, giving his eyewitness account over and over.

The old cop led Paul off the bench, which another cop was piling high with equipment, and past the barriers, waving frontline people back with his club. They stopped by a tall lamp planted at the curb, the paint along its long metal column peeling.

“This spot belongs to you, Paul. Don’t move from it.” Paul watched him rejoin the young cop guarding the carriage. Behind Paul, the crowd was swelling. The rumor of gun and bomb under the crying baby was frightening, made people squirm. Even so, they had gathered like locusts to watch.

Paul didn’t hate the people in the crowd, but he couldn’t understand them. Watching for a baby to die, horribly. Maybe putting themselves in danger too. Why?

Paul turned away, looked over the heads of the cops, into the eyes of the police horse fifteen feet in front of him, a beautiful Blood Bay that made Paul’s mind race back…

…to horses staring at him from that big book when his father was trying to get him to talk…and with great effort after four years he managed to repeat the kind of horse each one was… white Albino…yellowish Buckeye…brown Chestnut…golden Calico…

The Blood Bay staring at him was flanked by other mounted police horses forming a half-circle around the carriage. Foot cops stood behind the mounted cops. Behind them all, an ambulance waited, rear doors open. Ivory Face was in it, on a stretcher. But the ambulance didn’t rush her to the hospital, so Paul figured she must be okay. They were waiting for the baby.

Paul thought about the man, the stranger, who had been put into a canvas bag and driven off. The word
jealous
came to mind, but this time only the word. He felt nothing. He knew what the word meant. He felt nothing.

There must be a reason that the stranger bothered him.

Why must everything have a reason?

Why was Ivory Face important to him? Every morning for two months when she pushed the carriage past him, she looked at him but he knew that she really didn’t see him. She looked right through him as if he weren’t there. He didn’t exist to her. Like other people, she saw him but didn’t see him.

When he was a child, a toddler, one of his teachers had called him a cipher, the word taunting him. Later, when he had learned to read, he looked up the word and it meant zero…nothing.

He remembered the first time he overheard his parents talking about him. He was about three years old. He could hear and see, but he was mute. They had tried to make a sound come from his throat. They couldn’t. They couldn’t even get a rasp out of him. When he slipped in the bathtub, hurt his finger, he cried tears but made no sound. His parents were worried he’d remain silent all his life. They would never put him in an institution where he’d be with children like him…but they were frightened for him, frightened about what kind of life he would have.

* * *

His thoughts went back to Ivory Face.

Why was he interested in her?

Why must everything have a reason?

Since seeing her for the first time, he’d had her face before him each time he closed his eyes. She was beautiful, but it was more than that. Or less than that. It wasn’t about beauty. The look in her eyes: haunted. Hunted. Like there was something waiting for her, just over her shoulder or past the next corner, waiting for her and her baby. Something was causing her pain, was causing her fear. She was maybe twenty years old, twenty-one, but her eyes were so much older. He remembered his mother’s eyes, at the end.
If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain…

Paul saw someone running at him. Not a photographer this time, a woman. She had broken through the barricade, slipped past the policeman, and was heading for the carriage, $10 Bible held high. One of the cops went to intercept her, keep her away from the scene, and she veered to the side, barreling into Paul shoulder-first. The impact drove him back, and he lost his balance. Then the cop was on her, wrestling her away. Seeing her struggle in the policeman’s grip, a man on the other side of the barricade ducked under, shouting, waving a fist in the air. Others in the crowd took up the shout. Paul, on his ass in the dirt, looked up at the faces, previously tense, now angry. He thought:
They’d better do something soon.

Ivory Face twisted sideways on the cot of the waiting ambulance, balanced her flyweight on a fragile elbow, pressed her delicately chiseled face against the window and watched cops keeping the crowd away from her.

Sitting beside her was Helen Zara.

“Feel well enough to answer questions now?”

Ivory Face slightly turned her head, distorting her face.

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

“Frankie Troy.”

“Police record?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Father of the baby?”

“Yes.”

“What’s Frankie’s real name?”

“That’s the name I married. I’m his widow. Michelle Troy. What about my baby?”

“Can’t be moved till specialists get here.”

“I’ve got to change his diapers, feed him. They can do their work without my baby.”

“They can’t.”

“Why not?”

“The gun’s under your baby.”

Michelle’s eyes turned glassy. Zara knew it was time to get the doctor back but she pulled out a silver flask, unscrewed the top, poured bourbon down Michelle’s throat, and waited until air gurgled through Michelle’s lips. Zara closed the flask.

“I’m all right, Lieutenant. Ask your questions.”

“Who taught your baby to pull the monkey’s tail when the music stopped playing?”

“Frankie.”

“How many times did he walk the carriage with you?”

“Only once.”

“Was he on your left or right?”

“On my right.”

“The whole time?”

“Yes.”

“Who installed the monkey and the music box?”

“Frankie.”

“Anyone help him?”

“No.”

“Did you see him install it?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Two days ago.”

“You mean that in two days he taught the baby to pull the monkey’s tail to start the music?”

“My baby’s smart.”

“Where did he install it?”

“Under the stairway on the ground floor.”

“Is that where you always keep the carriage?”

“Yes. We live in a walkup, fourth floor. My baby sleeps in a crib.”

“The other tenants know the carriage was kept under the stairway?”

“Yes.”

“Who else knew?”

“The superintendent.”

“Who else?”

“Frankie.”

“How long’ve you lived there?”

“Eight months.”

“How did Frankie get along with the tenants?”

“He didn’t know any of them. He barged in a couple days ago, found out where we lived.”

“You were hiding from Frankie?”

“Damn right I was.”

“Who told him where you lived?”

“Who cares? He used the monkey and music box to try to win me back.”

“Did he threaten you if you didn’t take him back?”

“He just begged and cried.”

“When did you run out on him?”

“A year ago.”

“Short marriage.”

“Not short enough.”

“Did he ever beat you?”

“No.”

“Try to get you to push dope?”

“No.”

“Ever pimp for you?”

“No.”

“Why did you leave him?”

“People leave people.”

“Why did
you
?”

“People don’t like people.”

“Why did you marry him?”

“I got pregnant.”

“Are your parents alive?”

“No.”

“No family?”

“Only the baby.”

“Where did you marry Frankie?”

“On a boat.”

“Where?”

“Crossing the Hudson.”

“What boat?”

“Small.”

“Rental?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the name of the boat?”

“No name.”

“Catholic marriage?”

“Justice of the Peace.”

“What’s his name?”

“Don’t know. Everyone was drunk.”

“Were
you
?”

“All of us.”

“Who else?”

“Guy who handled the boat. Willie something…”

“Has anyone threatened you recently?”

“Why me?”

“You could’ve been on Frankie’s right, where the gun was pointed.”

Remembering: “Oh, my God! I was! I was on his right! When we headed out. Then this woman dropped a bag of oranges. Frankie helped her pick them up.”

“Why didn’t he step back on your left side where he had been?”

“I moved to fix the blanket.”

“So, has anyone threatened you?”

“You asked me.”

“You didn’t answer it.”

“…A man phoned last night.”

“What time?”

“About seven. Frankie was out. The man said Frankie owed him ten thousand dollars and Frankie’d be sorry if he didn’t pay before eleven o’clock.”

“Deadline was eleven o’clock last night?”

“Yes.”

“What name did he give you?”

“He didn’t.”

“Did you ask him?”

“No.”

“A man phoned and threatened your husband and you didn’t ask the man his name?”

“That’s Frankie’s problem.”

“You told Frankie about the threat?”

“Of course.”

“What did he say?”

“He laughed. He knew the screwball. He said forget it.”

“Did Frankie tell you the man’s name?”

“Just called him a…black psycho.”

“I mean his name.”

“Frankie said that’s what he called him—Black Psycho.”

“Did Frankie tell you where this ‘Black Psycho’ lived?”

“That was Frankie’s problem.”

“Did the man sound drunk? High?”

“No.”

“How old?”

“Hard to tell.”